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HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION PRESERVATION SPECIALIST REPORT January 31, 2014 Hello Commission! First of all, just a quick update on the Restore Michiana Workshop series, we have secured the Birdsell Mansion for the March workshop: Introduction to Power Tools. We believe this venue will be a selling point for this event as so many have always wanted to go inside and see it. We have started distributing the new flyers for the series to our sponsors and popular spots for event notices. The fliers look great! Thank you Elicia! Last week I appeared on Experience Michiana with Gordy Young to talk about the series and drum up some excitement! Speaking of public television, I also appeared on "Ask an Expert" with Gary Seibert last night with Dale and Blair Donat from Donat's Construction (they are on our list) as well as Jim Dunfee from Weichert Realtors to talk about home remodeling, preservation, and the housing market here in the area. Very cool!!! This is a live call in show and I hope I represented the commission well. The Old House Network event in January (Grand Rapids) has been rescheduled for February 15th in Kalamazoo. I will speaking about workshops and how to deal with contractors. On a different note, I appreciate the efforts made thus far from those commissioners that have attempted to contact the mayor in regards to finding additional funds for my position. I will tell you that this was a difficult winter for me. I am grateful for the snow falling as it kept my head above water. I have been trying diligently to minimize my hours thus far this year by doing an hour or so here and there while simultaneously removing snow and making pizzas. That works for this year. It will be more difficult to make that happen in 2015. Working three part time jobs, none of which have any available benefits is beginning to take its toll on me. Thankfully, we have been able to work out an agreement with Indiana Landmarks so that my hours for the workshops will not come out of my hours for my duties here rather they will be paid directly from the proceeds of the events. Catherine and Elicia have also offered to do any of the environmental reviews outside of demolitions themselves rather than leaving those for me to save hours. I only mention these things to show you that we are not squandering my hours on nonsense, and that we are working together to keep my time where it needs to be. This year I am planning an aggressive minimum maintenance survey program in the neighborhoods. I am hoping that with the help of some interns that we will be able to tackle a few per day and send them out directly rather than the mass amount we had done in the past. I am in the neighborhoods anyway, but these work better being on foot a block at a time. This gives us not only a sense of what's going on with these houses but also a chance to report any code violations that we may discover. We need to work with Code Enforcement to strengthen our relationship with them and the city. Steve Szaday Preservation Specialist